Woking Workplace Challenge

It was all about pedal power in June 2010, as Woking businesses took to their bikes to compete in the Woking Cycle Challenge, a free, fun competition to encourage people to remember the joys of riding a bike!

The two week scheme, run by Cycle Woking, aimed to get as many people as possible to ditch their cars and go by bike in the two week Challenge period from 14 to 27 June 2010.

Participants registered their workplace and then logged how far they and their colleagues rode to work or in their leisure time each day.

The winning organisations which cycled the furthest and had the highest proportion of staff signed up to the Challenge were Winston Churchill School, MVA Consultancy, Dr. Bourke and Partners, Lab Lateral and RedCamen. Congratulations to all winners, who received a visit from an ice-cream van treating everyone at their workplace to free ice-creams!

232 eager cyclists took part in the Challenge and together they clocked up a tremendous 23,491 miles! They cycled for a variety of reasons - to have fun, lose weight, get fit, save time commuting, or just to win some prizes.

Carole Frost, who works at Dr. Bourke and Partners, was the lucky winner of a free bike, winning £500 worth of vouchers to spend at a local cycle shop on a bike of her choice. Carole said: I was very excited to win. The Challenge was great fun. I managed to get four colleagues to sign up to the challenge. Two of them were already fairly committed cyclists but one got back onto a bike for the first time in a year. Another colleague actually used her bike to come to work for the first time. I hope she will continue to do that. Next year they might all sign up when they actually realize they might win a bike, an ice cream or some cinema tickets. I told them they might but I guess they didn't believe me!

You can still join in too. People are still being encouraged to visit the website (www.wokingcyclechallenge.org.uk) to log their cycle trips over the coming months. You can challenge your colleagues or neighbouring workplaces, sign up friends and use the helpful calorie counter to keep track of how many calories youve burned through cycling.